As Los Angeles County’s requirement that adult film stars wear condoms in all porns filmed there threatens to spread statewide, the industry is fleeing California for less-regulated areas.

Permits issued for adult entertainment productions in Los Angeles
plummeted to just 40 last year ‒ a decline of 90 percent ‒
according to the latest data announced by FilmL.A. Inc, the
nonprofit group that handles film permits for the city and
county. The jurisdiction is on pace to lose even more X-rated
film business, as only 20 permits have been issued so far in
2014. As many as 5,000 porns were shot in LA in 2011, according
to the Los Angeles Times, but LA County will likely only issue 35
porn permits this year.

"We've seen a dramatic drop in permits," Paul Audley,
president of FilmL.A., told the
LA Times. "It is a cause for concern that people who are
manning the cameras, lights and other things on those sets are
not working anymore.... It's not helpful to have another segment
of the industry leave the region."

Audley noted that the porn stars aren’t the only ones hurt by the
exodus.

"Adult film making might not be something everyone approves
of, but the people who work in that industry are your neighbors.
A cameraman may be working on this one day and a sitcom the next
and a feature film in six months," he told KABC.

The flight from LA began after first the city council (with the
City
of Los Angeles Safer Sex In The Adult Film Industry Act) then
the voters (with Measure
B) enacted legislation requiring adult film actors to wear
condoms during all sex acts on set. Both laws came after intense
lobbying from the LA-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).
Before that, only gay porn stars wore condoms ‒ a reaction to the
AIDS epidemic of the 1980s.

Production started moving from LA to other counties, including
Ventura, actress and director Kayden Kross told the LA Times’ Jim
Newton. But now those areas are at risk of losing the industry as
well.

In January, State Assemblymember Isadore Hall III (D-Los Angeles)
sponsored
AB 1576, a bill that would require porn actors to wear
condoms at all film shoots, mandate testing for sexually
transmitted diseases, and force porn studios to keep a
“log” of all porn stars’ “sexual activities”
performed on-set anywhere in the Golden State.

The industry is responsible for 10,000 jobs in California,
according to Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and
Commerce Association. The majority of heterosexual adult film
production is based in LA’s San Fernando Valley, while the gay
industry is split between San Francisco, LA, San Diego and New
York, SFist.com reported.

"We've estimated this is a $6 billion industry and by losing
them, you are going to lose a lot," Waldman told KUSA.
"The performers and the caterers and the camera guys all live
and work in the San Fernando Valley and when they start to leave,
they're going to take all their money with them."

The first major move came in July, when San Francisco-based
Kink.com announced it had begun shooting in Las Vegas, where it
is opening new facilities. Kink founder Peter Acworth said a few
other adult studios, including Brazzers and Bluebird Films, had
already made the move to Sin City, according to LA Weekly.

“Vegas is looking more and more attractive as time goes by.
The cost of doing business out there is lower. The resources are
slowly moving there. It’s becoming easier and easier to do
business [there],” Acworth told
SFist. “I think that a lot of companies are doing what
we’re doing. They’re setting up satellite offices and getting
their feet wet with Vegas as a potential place to shoot.”

Along with Vegas, porn crews are shooting in locations in
Florida, Brazil and Eastern Europe.

"This month we're shooting 10 movies in Brazil," Kelly
Holland, managing director for Penthouse Entertainment, told the
Times. "Last month, we shot five movies in Europe. It's just
too complex to shoot here." (Penthouse is based in The
Valley.)

Even before the news of how bad the porn industry’s LA exodus was
revealed, the California Senate Appropriations committee
suspended AB 1576, the statewide version of Measure B, on Monday.
Diane Duke, head of the Free Speech Coalition, told
LA Weekly that the suspension could be a sign of waning
support by lawmakers.

“The more legislators hear about the bill, the more they
don’t like it. This bill will have major financial cost for the
California, while doing nothing to improve the safety of
performers,” she said. “And it’s not just performers and
producers who are opposed to the bill, it’s HIV and AIDS outreach
organizations, sex worker rights organizations, LGBTQ
organizations, and business organizations.”